Rep. Wolf's Problem Is With The Modern Republican Party, Not Just Norquist

October 06, 2011 11:16 am ET
- by Jamison Foser

Earlier
this week, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) lashed out at conservative
anti-government activist Grover Norquist, whose "demand for ideological purity
is paralyzing Congress to the point that even a discussion of tax reform is
viewed as breaking a no-tax pledge." Unsurprisingly, Norquist didn't take long
to respond, calling Wolf's comments a "hissy fit" and a "compilation of
whack-job criticisms." But look past the bluster, and Norquist has a point — a very good point:

He added that he thought the
Virginia lawmaker, one of the relatively few GOP members of Congress to have
not signed the tax pledge, was lashing out at him because he did not want to
call out his Republican colleagues.

"He is the only Republican
arguing that tax increases are a good idea," Norquist told The Hill. "What he
has is a problem with the American people and the modern Reagan Republican
Party." [...]

"The guy that stopped tax increases is named Boehner, not Norquist,"
the activist said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). "But if he
wants to chew on my ankles, I can take it."

Norquist
is right. The problem — if you think that a refusal to consider any revenue increase
is a problem — isn't Grover Norquist. It's Speaker Boehner and his fellow
congressional Republicans. It's the modern Republican Party, which has turned its back on basic economics, choosing rigid ideological purity over reasoned analysis.
In blasting Norquist rather than calling out his fellow members of Congress,
Wolf is taking the easy way out. It may make him feel better to attack
Norquist, but if he really wanted to take a stand, he'd take on his leadership
and colleagues.

To take
just one example: Rather than blasting Norquist for opposing the elimination of
special interest tax breaks, he'd criticize Republican legislators who want to
preserve billions of dollars in tax breaks for huge oil companies.
Instead, Wolf votes with them.
Frank Wolf has a safe seat — he won re-election with 67 percent of the vote in
2010, and hasn't had a close race in decades — so he can lash out at Norquist
with relative impunity. That isn't courageous or principled; it's just
grandstanding. If Wolf really wants to do something important, he'll broaden
his critique to include the modern GOP, not just an activist
with fewer than two dozen staffers.